Softechie
Here is a good read on VONs and some educated guesses to the direction of the this space:
(Note I had to split it into two sections,,,)
- An Emerging Industry
- Standards and Industry Forums
- The PAM Forum
- The IETF's IMPP Working Group
- Interview with Jonathan Rosenberg, dynamicsoft
- Question of the Month
- Bantu Launch
- Upcoming Events
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Welcome to the first issue of the Presence and Instant Messaging Report,
produced by Technical Marketing Inc. in association with pulver.com.
Our purpose in starting this report is to help develop the Presence and
IM community, and provide the resources and links that industry
participants need to understand business and technical issues.
We envision this report and its companion web site
( instantmessaging.org ) to be a sort of electronic forum for
two way conversations about the Presence and Instant Messaging industry.
Please send your comments and feedback on this report to:
mona@tech-marketing.com. Your suggestions for topics for future reports
would be appreciated!
-------------------------------------
AN EMERGING INDUSTRY
-------------------------------------
Over the past few months, I've been attending conferences and industry
meetings and talking to industry participants with the goal of beginning
to understand the Presence and IM (Instant Messaging) industry.
Presence and Instant Messaging appear to me to be the first set of new
functionalities and services to emerge from all the hype about
"next gen" services.
With the help of Pam Zetterlund-Clark, I've spent some time talking with
the 64 companies we've initially identified as being in this space.
Of these 64, the majority (57) are based in North America,
and 27 are public, 36 are private and one is an open source code project.
While many are involved in industry efforts to encourage interoperability,
they are also launching products and services at a rapid rate!
Fasten your seat belts - the industry is immature, fast moving and
already wrestling with some complex problems.
I noticed at Jeff Pulver's first IM conference in Boston in May just
how young this community is. Most of the attendees didn't know each other,
and didn't know anything about each other's companies. I thought
it would be useful to attempt to develop a description of the
Presence and IM industry structure, to give the community a way to talk
about what products and services their companies provide. My first attempt
at this description is at www.instantmessaging.org under the industry
section.
I took a quasi-architectural layered approach, with infrastructure vendors
forming the base of the industry, and applications, devices and components
towards the top. You'll see that billing and security functions are needed
at several layers of the diagram. However, we've not found a lot of
billing or security players targeting the Presence and IM market
specifically.
We'd love to hear your comments on this diagram. The folks at Bantu and
others have already pointed out that although the applications ride on
top of the specialized service providers' platforms, they can also be
provided from a service provider like Bantu in a hosted environment.
This means that layer could reside under the specialized service
provider layer as well as above it. I'm sure we'll go through
several iterations of this diagram as we receive comments and as
the industry matures.
My next task was to try to place industry participants/community
members under the categories shown in the diagram. This exercise
also demonstrated the immaturity of the industry, with many players
providing all the functions or layers. Some applications developers
are also service providers. As the industry matures, I think you'll
see more players focusing on specific layers, including the presence
service provider layer, and more of a wholesale business model.
Here's my first pass - I welcome your comments:
INFRASTRUCTURE VENDORS
-------------------------------------------
dynamicsoft
Elity
Ericsson
jabber.com
Novell
Software.com
UPOC
Vovida
WapIT
SERVICE PROVIDERS - PRESENCE MANAGEMENT AND DIRECTORY SERVICES
---------------------------------------------------------------
I-Link
Locus
MeetU
NetLert (Directory Services)
NetNumber (Directory Services)
SERVICE PROVIDERS - IM AND RELATED SERVICES
---------------------------------------------------------------
Alta Vista
AOL
Bantu
Blue Rock Ranch
Boomerang
dialpad.com
ecal
FireTalk
ICQ
iBasis
I-Link
Iobox
Lycos
Mediaring.com
metatel
MSN
Net2Phone
NTT DoCoMo
OZ.COM
PeopleLink
Tribal Voice
Truly Global
Visitalk.com
Vocaltec
Yahoo
VERTICAL OR SPECIALIZED SERVICE PROVIDERS
--------------------------------------------
Community Services
----------------------------
AOL
CrowdBurst
HotLine Communications
PeopleLink
Yahoo
Conferencing/Chat
--------------------------
AOL
Bantu
Blue Rock Ranch
Boomerang
CUseeMe Networks
Hotline Communications
mediaring.com
MeetU
PeopleLink
Tribal Voice
Visitalk.com
Yahoo
ecommerce/CRM
------------------------
EzCRM
Isky
mediaring.com
Net2Phone
Surf&Call Network Services
mcommerce
----------------
Oz.com
UPOC
Collaboration
-------------------
CrowdBurst
Hotline Communications
mail.com
MeetU
Tribal Voice
Visitalk.com
Gaming/Dating
--------------------
Hotline Communications
Distance Learning
-------------------------
CuseeMe Networks
Event Management
---------------------------
CuseeMe Networks
PeopleLink
APPLICATIONS
---------------------
Basic IM
-----------
AOL
Bantu
Blue Rock Ranch
Boomerang
CenterSpan Communications
CUseeMe Networks
Epicware
Ericsson
ICQ
Jabber.com
MeetU.com
MetaTel
My Solutions Nordic
MSN
Multimate.net
NetLert
Novell
Odigo
Oz.com
PeopleLink
Tribal Voice
UPOC
Yahoo
PAM/Presence
--------------------
IDap
MagNetPoint
MeetU.com
Multimate
Novell
Odigo
PeopleLink
SignalSoft (mobile location services software)
WapIT
Community Services
----------------------------
HearMe
Hotline Communications
Conferencing/Chat
--------------------------
CenterSpan Communications
Everybuddy
Ezenia
HearMe
Hotline Communications
MagNetPoint
Multimate.net
Odigo
Tribal Voice
WapIT
ecommerce/CRM
-----------------------
FaceTime
HearMe
netPCS Networks
Novell
Portal
mcommerce
----------------
Ericsson
OZ.COM
Upoc
Collaboration
-------------------
CenterSpan Communications
Hotline Communications
My Solutions
Odigo
Tribal Voice
Gaming/Dating
--------------------
CenterSpan Communications
Electronic Arts
Hotline Communications
Tribal Voice
Distance Learning
-------------------------
HearMe
Event Management
---------------------------
HearMe
SMS
-------
AmikaNow!
Ericsson
iobox
VPN/Virtual Office
-------------------------
I-Link
VocalTec
DEVICES
-------------
Ericsson
I-Link
CHARGING/BILLING
----------------------------
Portal
Solect
SECURITY
---------------
Bantu
Blue Rock Ranch
Boomerang
mediaring.com (voice disguise)
NetLert
Novell
OTHER
----------
AmikaNow! (content interpretation technology)
Digital Cyclone (location-based weather forecasts)
ecal (web-based calendar providing presence information)
Phone.com (software to provide mobile subscribers access to
Internet-based info)
TelSurf (audio browser)
Wireless Knowledge (software to provide mobile subscribers access to
Internet-based info) |
